Yesterday, I expressed dismay at how Dr. Mehmet Oz, the protege of Oprah Winfrey who now has his own popular syndicated daily show, recently named the quackery known as reiki as number one in his list of "gone completely over to the Dark Side."

You'd not guess this from the descriptions of vendors, who have adopted this as a claimed scientific demonstration of several forms of alternative diagnosis and therapies to "balance the energy field" (whether Mr Oldfield's own electro-crystal therapy or longer-standing systems such as reiki).

Services volunteers will be trained in a health improvement initiative, a listening service, mentoring, and a range of complementary therapies, such as reiki, Indian head massage, reflexology and shiatsu.

That's actually the single sentence that drew me to post it here. The Vatican is protesting that something's unscientific? (I'm sorry if this comes off as offensive to any Catholics—I'm Catholic myself—but this statement, as well as the rest of the article, deserves consideration.)

"The bishops said that Catholics should stop practicing Reiki, a healing therapy that is used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers, and which was enthusiastically adopted by many nuns. The bishops said Reiki is both unscientific and non-Christian." (Heh, I wonder which one the Vatican is more pissed off about. /snark)

"Nuns practicing reiki and running church reform groups may have finally proved too much for the church’s male hierarchy, said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns,�? (Doubleday Religion, 2006)."—Laurie Goldstein, "U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny," New York Times, July 1, 2009